Epilogue II: Crystal Kingdoms
Epilogue II: Crystal Kingdoms is an encounter in Against the King. Enemies * Putra'chad (Against the King) (100 Gold, 100 XP, 100 Energy, 2 HP) Transcript Introduction They ran. Over ground the color of blood, strewn with the shattered bones of those whose swiftness had failed them. Past jagged spires of rock where sinners screamed, spread-eagled -- pinned by spikes that pierced their wrists and ankles. Beyond pits where other damned souls thrashed and drowned forever in vats of rancid feces. The stench of sulfur and excrement tore at Hugh's nose. "Help!" "Save us!" "Please! Pleeeaaaase!" Hugh tried to ignore the cries, the pleas, the howls of doomed men and women. There was nothing they could do. If they stopped, they'd suffer far worse. "Halt!" An imp scuttled out from behind the rocks. He thrust his palm towards them. "Halt, sinners, by order of Lord-" The Titaran smashed into him. The diminutive demon flew aside, yelping. There was a splash. A moment later, his head and flailing arms bobbed up from one of the crap-pits. "Stop them! Stop the sinners!" More imps converged in front of them. Beady eyes shone. Worm-like tentacles and festering boils pulsed and wriggled across multicolored hides. Hugh and Rakshara didn't slow down. The human and oroc collided with the pack of fiends, slashing and bludgeoning. Hugh's heavy lump of infernal steel came down on an imp's head and splattered his brains. Rakshara laid into them with the serrated sword in her right hand and the long, black bone in her left. Battered bodies crumpled and were stomped underfoot. Demons fled screaming, clutching spurting stumps or cradling tangles of intestines. Hugh's mace crushed the last enemy's chest. "Sodding imps. Never cared for the little buggers. Well, maybe Niknak..." Rakshara said nothing. They ran once more. In a few minutes the red ground was behind them, and they were heading over the azure sands of another hell. The two of them stopped in a dense copse of yellow trees that screened them from sight. Long pink tongues emerged from the trunks, probing the newcomers. One licked the Titaran's cheek. He batted it away. Hugh sat down and inspected his wounds. Infernal claws had torn several gashes in the hellhound hides he wore. He'd have to replace them soon, and find more creatures to butcher for their pelts. He rubbed glowing fingers along the cuts -- searing them shut beneath an ugly layer of throbbing pink flesh. "Can't be that much further," he said. Rakshara sat in silence, examining her weapons. But he'd expected nothing else. She hadn't said a single word to him in Putra'chad's slave pits, not even after the torturers brought out their whips of broken glass and he knelt beside her -- mending ravaged orange skin. Nor did she speak on the night of their escape. She merely pressed a stolen weapon into his hands and began killing. How long had they fled across the hells? Days? Weeks? Months? Endless flights and battles blended together into one great infernal tapestry, a garbled patchwork mess. In all that time he hadn't heard her voice. The oroc's words were for friends and lovers. The two of them were just survivors now. Yet he still spoke to her. Because if he didn't, if he joined her in that quietness which cut deeper than the demons' whips, it would all be over. The last shred of their lives torn away forever. "I'll keep watch," he said. Rakshara lay on her side, facing away from him. Hugh stared up at the treetops and sighed. *** "Past those sodding trees." Hugh pointed to the horizon, where the sand gave way to another stretch of tall yellow trunks and slithering tongues. "Must be the place that lass was going on about. Maybe..." He grunted. The Titaran had little faith in the jabbering sinner's directions, and suspected they weren't worth the shank of charred meat he'd left in her gnarled hands. But they had little else to go on. "A few more days and-" "Seize them!" a voice roared "Bloody hell!" A titanic figure stood atop a massive dune, looming up against the seething mass of sky -- a monstrosity of pestilent flesh, mottled with a million maladies, his limbs and torso split by a dozen leering maws. Putra'chad ran down the mountain of sand, slipping and sliding as it sloughed away from his clawed feet. Pus seeped from his diseased flesh. The fiend's mouths chattered incomprehensible babble. His minions crested the dune behind him, and a horde of plague demons surged down in his wake. "Run!" Hugh said. They raced across the blue desert, kicking up azure clouds, stumbling and righting themselves. "Your skin will be my cloak!" Putra'chad's voice was close. The rasping words rained down on them like a cloud of swarming flies. "My diseases will eat your muscles till you each beg me to torture the other instead!" They burst into the tree line, among the licking tongues, shielding their faces as they ploughed through the infernal vegetation. "Oh, sod!" Beyond the trees was another expanse of azure sand. It stretched away for a few dozen yards. And then it ended, where it became the shore of a bubbling green lake. "We can blooming well go round-" "Imps will nibble your innards!" Putra'chad crashed among the last of the trees. Hugh and Rakshara ran, hurtling towards the turgid waters. He was too close. They'd have to swim... But a moment later, the Titaran knew it was hopeless. They staggered to a halt at the lake's edge. Before them, jagged fins and thrashing tentacles split the frothing emerald surface. "Ha!" Putra'chad and his minions had stopped. The demon lord stood on the blue sand, all his mouths grinning, leaking rivers of phlegm. "You're mine..." Conclusion Hugh glanced over his shoulder, at the lake's teeming beasts. Then at the towering demon and his pestilent horde. A gruesome, agonizing fate awaited them in either direction. Rakshara raised her weapons. He did the same. "What?" Putra'chad gawped. Hugh grunted. Maybe the cocky sod didn't expect us to fight back, he thought. Then an immense shadow descended, washing over the sand, and the din of clashing waters roared all around him. He looked up. "Oh..." was all he could manage. The lake was above now, a gigantic wave that blocked out the sky, entombing them beneath a vault of green liquid. Snapping, clawing beasts still swam in its flood -- hovering within the impossible, gravity-defying deluge. "Wait a blooming minute... I know this trick!" The water passed overhead, shielding them with its emerald aegis, and surged towards the demons. Putra'chad howled and turned to flee. His minions ran. But they were all too slow. Untold tons of water crashed down on them. Hungry creatures bit and tore. Hugh and Rakshara's enemies disappeared, swept away and submerged. In moments the two of them stood on a little island of blue sand. A burly, powerful form rose out of the water. Liquid streamed off an orange fin, bulging muscles, and big lobster-like claws. "Brach'Xell will be pleased," Dagunar said. "He's been looking for you..." *** Rakshara leaned against the balcony rail and gazed out over Krezzor. The view from atop the citadel was breathtaking, a vision of loveliness far removed from the disgusting, miserable, or terrifying landscapes she'd endured elsewhere in the infernal realm. Rich purple grass rolled away like a silk mantle. It carpeted the hills and the plain where the oroc and her friends had once battled the legions of hell. Violet folds encircled lakes colored deep green by the emerald sky above, and framed gleaming, high-arched buildings. But her gaze didn't linger on the beauty before her. Instead it rested unfocussed on the horizon, while a million more troubling thoughts and images spun through her mind. "Hugh did what he thought was best," Brachus said. The oroc inclined her head but didn't turn around or reply. "Do you know why?" he continued. "He told me. When we were chained in the pits. He said he wanted to protect me." "Yes. He couldn't bear to see you harmed because of him." "He damned us both!" "No. If you must despise him, so be it. But hate him for his deeds, not your own. He only accepted damnation for himself. You followed him here of your own accord and against his wishes." "Of course I did! I..." "Precisely. What does that tell you?" "I don't..." "He's spent the past days locked away in his chamber, shunning food. Why don't you go see what he's been doing?" Rakshara turned around, a retort on her lips. But there was something in the demon's purple eyes and the gentle curve of his smile that stilled her tongue. She walked past him instead, and made her way through the castle's winding corridors. "Niknak, Niknak, Niknak has won..." The imp came down the passage, singing, with a big grin plastered across his fiendish green face. He looked up at Rakshara. "Go see! See what he's done!" The demon walked off, whistling his tune. Rakshara pushed the door open and stepped into the room. Her eyes widened. "Niknak! I told you..." Hugh turned round. "Oh... I... I mean... It's not finished yet! I still... I..." He looked away. The oroc gazed around the chamber. Crystal gleamed on every surface, covering the walls and furniture. Clusters that might have come from her people's subterranean kingdom formed elaborate sculptures and embellishments, a hundred colors and shades all arranged to flow in exquisite perfection. Sorcery danced within their facets -- making their glinting lights brighter and more resplendent than nature could ever manage alone. A legion of reflected Raksharas stared back at her, their eyes soft, lips forming a smile they hadn't worn in so very long. "It's..." Hugh said. "I mean, I know it's not the same. But..." The oroc came towards him. He looked up into her eyes. And all around the chamber, a million Hughs and Raksharas kissed. Category:Against the King